Friday, January 18, 2013

DIY: Large Cupcake!

Instructions:

Cut
out two circles. One will be the base. The second one should be about
1 to 2 inches larger in diameter and will be used as the top of the
shape. If you think of the shape a cupcake liner would make, you have a
section from a cone with a larger circle at the top and the smaller at
the bottom.

Then
cut out a whole bunch of strips of cardboard. Anything wider than 1
inch would probably be a pain to work with, so don’t go larger than
that. The height of the strip will determine how high your cup will be.
We used pieces that were around 5 inches long.

The
strips will be the sides that connect the two round pieces together.
This seemed easier when a glob of hot glue was placed on the smaller
circle’s edge and then a few strips are placed along the edge at an
angle. Remember it will have to go from a smaller diameter to a larger
one but don’t be too concerned about getting the angle exact.

Once
the edge of the small circle is covered, take the larger circle and
place it inside of the strips. Fiddle around with it to make sure it is
fairly center and level in relation to the smaller circle it is
suspended above.

Glue each strip to the second circle. That is your basic shape and will help keep everything together.

For
the outside, use white wrapping paper that will measure out to be about
twice the diameter of the larger circle (ex: if the outside rim
measures 10 inches all the way around you want to use about 20 inches
wrapping paper). It is always a good thing to add a few extra inches
just in case.

Our
cupcake liner was made by taking the piece of wrapping paper and
folding it three times (along the dotted lines in the little diagram
below). This gave an inch of extra paper above the inside cardboard
base.

Take
the narrow piece of wrapping paper and fold like a fan. The smaller
the distance between the folds the more you will make and the smaller
the creases will be on your giant cupcake liner. The larger the
distance the less folds but the larger the creases will be.

When
the whole piece of paper is folded open it up and make a circle. Take
the cardboard base and make sure it fits inside. Not too lose but you
also don’t want it too tight because that will just make it more
difficult for you. Trim and glue or tape the two ends of the fan after
you have found the fit.

Place
the cardboard base inside the wrapping paper. Make sure the creases are
evenly spaced (they won’t just do this on their own unfortunately).
Then start gluing the paper to the cardboard so it won’t fall apart if
you need to move it.

The
bow on the front of our cupcake does not go all the way around. If you
try you’ll notice the shape will force it to an angle. If you have a
solution for this other than ours go for it. We simply started in the
middle of our cupcake and worked back until the angle of the ribbon was
too drastic then made a nice cut. At this point it was far enough back
that you can’t tell. You will need to do this twice for each side of
the knot.

The
frosting topping was made by using scrap/left over/damaged pieces of
wrap film and tissue and then wrapped it with a piece of wrap film. The
shape was sculpted at this step with tape so that it had a more domed
look. Squish it and pinch it, whatever you can to make it into the
shape you think it should be.

Then
cover that shape with the colour you want the icing to be. **Keep
checking to make sure this piece fits into the cupcake liner you just
built for yourself. If it is too small you can twist some similar
coloured tissue to place around the bottom but you can’t easily fix it
if it is too large.